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Time-Flight!
After hearing the wonderful Davison/Fielding/Sutton commentary to "Arc of Infinity" and being told by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit that their commentary to "Time-Flight" was also wonderful, I just had to rent the DVD. And before hearing the commentary, I of course had to watch the episode, especially since I really couldn't remember what happens in it at all.
Really, I could not remember. At all. I can't believe I hadn't seen this episode before -- the Davison era was smack in the middle of my initial love for the show, and I definitely know I saw the preceding episode ("Earthshock") and the following one ("Arc of Infinity") back when they first aired -- but watching this was really like seeing it for the very first time. I didn't know what was going to happen next, and nothing struck me as familiar while watching it.
So, even though I haven't heard the commentary track yet, I thought I'd do a quick reaction post to the episode itself.
[Review style stolen frompersiflage_1 because it's fun and fits my mood tonight. However, fair warning, since I didn't take notes while watching and am going by memory, some of my entries might not follow the order in which those moments actually occur in the story.]
-- Interesting speech by the Doctor about not being able to go back and save Adric, especially in the light of "Waters of Mars." He is all "there are rules that can't be broken," and "never ask me to do something like that again." I liked that they started off with that scene, literally picking up from the end of the last episode.
-- That looks like they really filmed at Heathrow airport! Whoo hoo, I've visited more Doctor Who film locations than I thought. ; )
-- The Doctor has to talk his way out of trouble again, and then: UNIT reference! And Brigadier reference ftw!!!!! Which leads to them not just letting him go, but dragging him into their current problem. Overall that was a much better way to get the Doctor involved than having them randomly say "Oh, by the way, there's this missing plane, perhaps you, random stranger, can help." I also loved that the big thing the Doctor had to do before taking off from the terminal right away was go get the newspaper so he could look up the cricket scores.
-- Fourth Doctor scarf reference!!!!!! And Castrovalva reference!!!!! And "Keeper of Traken" reference / Melkur! And ADRIC!!!!!!!! I didn't remember that he had any cameos after "Earthshock" other than the end of "Caves of Androzani." Nice to (briefly) see him again. The way he and the other apparitions tried to get Tegan and Nyssa to go back and then faded away when they went forward was very similar to scenes in "The Five Doctors" (or rather, "The Five Doctors" was similar to this since this came first).
-- Weird alien guy is weird. And skirting awfully close to offensive ethnic stereotypes. Also, the actor seems familiar but I can't place him.
-- OMG THAT'S THE MASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG THE MASTER IS IN THIS STORY???? OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(This is the moment when I knew I didn't remember anything at all from this story, because I truly had no clue that the weird alien guy was the Master until he unveiled. And then of course I realized just why the actor seemed familiar. Not only did I fail at remembering that the Master was in this story, I also failed at recognizing Anthony Ainley. And usually I'm pretty good at the "spot Artemus Gordon" game.*) *random Wild Wild West reference; if you don't get it, ignore it and move on.
-- It's interesting how the Doctor completely refuses to hand over the TARDIS key to weird alien guy, but gives in right away once he knows it's the Master. Is that because once he knows the truth, he takes the threat "hand it over or I'll kill your friends" more seriously? Or is it because he no longer has to worry about handing over the power of time travel, since the Master can already do that anyway?
-- Love the Master's disparaging remarks about the Doctor's TARDIS. True character continuity there, harking back to Delgado.
-- I liked the Concorde captain. I was rooting for him being able to pilot the TARDIS -- and he almost did, too!
-- The professor's sacrifice was a little odd. There didn't seem to be any point to it other than the one moment where he gets the TARDIS to where it needs to be, which admittedly was important but you'd think that with the big set-up they gave it he would show up more than just that one time. Especially since it seemed that the Xeraphin were looking to bond with someone for a particular reason.
-- Seems just a little strange that with all that power in the heart of the Master's TARDIS, he still has to materialize on this one exact spot at Heathrow airport or else get trapped on the Xeraphin world. Whew, that was a lucky break for the universe, wasn't it?
-- The Doctor left without Tegan? Without asking if she wanted to stay? Without even saying goodbye? I mean, I knew Tegan left at the end of this (mostly because I knew she wasn't with the Doctor at the beginning of "Arc of Infinity"), but I had expected it to be her decision, not a case of "Whoops, gotta run, wait, didn't we forget someone? Oh well."
Overall, an enjoyable episode with a plot that didn't make much sense, got resolved in a way that made even less sense and left a companion unfairly dangling. Now I'm wondering if I blocked out this episode from my mind because I didn't like how it treated Tegan. But I did enjoy the (re)watch.
Now for the commentary track!!!!!!!
thisbluespirit that their commentary to "Time-Flight" was also wonderful, I just had to rent the DVD. And before hearing the commentary, I of course had to watch the episode, especially since I really couldn't remember what happens in it at all.Really, I could not remember. At all. I can't believe I hadn't seen this episode before -- the Davison era was smack in the middle of my initial love for the show, and I definitely know I saw the preceding episode ("Earthshock") and the following one ("Arc of Infinity") back when they first aired -- but watching this was really like seeing it for the very first time. I didn't know what was going to happen next, and nothing struck me as familiar while watching it.
So, even though I haven't heard the commentary track yet, I thought I'd do a quick reaction post to the episode itself.
[Review style stolen from
persiflage_1 because it's fun and fits my mood tonight. However, fair warning, since I didn't take notes while watching and am going by memory, some of my entries might not follow the order in which those moments actually occur in the story.]-- Interesting speech by the Doctor about not being able to go back and save Adric, especially in the light of "Waters of Mars." He is all "there are rules that can't be broken," and "never ask me to do something like that again." I liked that they started off with that scene, literally picking up from the end of the last episode.
-- That looks like they really filmed at Heathrow airport! Whoo hoo, I've visited more Doctor Who film locations than I thought. ; )
-- The Doctor has to talk his way out of trouble again, and then: UNIT reference! And Brigadier reference ftw!!!!! Which leads to them not just letting him go, but dragging him into their current problem. Overall that was a much better way to get the Doctor involved than having them randomly say "Oh, by the way, there's this missing plane, perhaps you, random stranger, can help." I also loved that the big thing the Doctor had to do before taking off from the terminal right away was go get the newspaper so he could look up the cricket scores.
-- Fourth Doctor scarf reference!!!!!! And Castrovalva reference!!!!! And "Keeper of Traken" reference / Melkur! And ADRIC!!!!!!!! I didn't remember that he had any cameos after "Earthshock" other than the end of "Caves of Androzani." Nice to (briefly) see him again. The way he and the other apparitions tried to get Tegan and Nyssa to go back and then faded away when they went forward was very similar to scenes in "The Five Doctors" (or rather, "The Five Doctors" was similar to this since this came first).
-- Weird alien guy is weird. And skirting awfully close to offensive ethnic stereotypes. Also, the actor seems familiar but I can't place him.
-- OMG THAT'S THE MASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG THE MASTER IS IN THIS STORY???? OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(This is the moment when I knew I didn't remember anything at all from this story, because I truly had no clue that the weird alien guy was the Master until he unveiled. And then of course I realized just why the actor seemed familiar. Not only did I fail at remembering that the Master was in this story, I also failed at recognizing Anthony Ainley. And usually I'm pretty good at the "spot Artemus Gordon" game.*) *random Wild Wild West reference; if you don't get it, ignore it and move on.
-- It's interesting how the Doctor completely refuses to hand over the TARDIS key to weird alien guy, but gives in right away once he knows it's the Master. Is that because once he knows the truth, he takes the threat "hand it over or I'll kill your friends" more seriously? Or is it because he no longer has to worry about handing over the power of time travel, since the Master can already do that anyway?
-- Love the Master's disparaging remarks about the Doctor's TARDIS. True character continuity there, harking back to Delgado.
-- I liked the Concorde captain. I was rooting for him being able to pilot the TARDIS -- and he almost did, too!
-- The professor's sacrifice was a little odd. There didn't seem to be any point to it other than the one moment where he gets the TARDIS to where it needs to be, which admittedly was important but you'd think that with the big set-up they gave it he would show up more than just that one time. Especially since it seemed that the Xeraphin were looking to bond with someone for a particular reason.
-- Seems just a little strange that with all that power in the heart of the Master's TARDIS, he still has to materialize on this one exact spot at Heathrow airport or else get trapped on the Xeraphin world. Whew, that was a lucky break for the universe, wasn't it?
-- The Doctor left without Tegan? Without asking if she wanted to stay? Without even saying goodbye? I mean, I knew Tegan left at the end of this (mostly because I knew she wasn't with the Doctor at the beginning of "Arc of Infinity"), but I had expected it to be her decision, not a case of "Whoops, gotta run, wait, didn't we forget someone? Oh well."
Overall, an enjoyable episode with a plot that didn't make much sense, got resolved in a way that made even less sense and left a companion unfairly dangling. Now I'm wondering if I blocked out this episode from my mind because I didn't like how it treated Tegan. But I did enjoy the (re)watch.
Now for the commentary track!!!!!!!
no subject
Of course, in Wild, Wild West, I was always looking out for Artie. I think I'd be bad at spotting randomly disguised characters, too. (Like in this case, when I didn't recognize the Master.)
I don't think you can blame yourself for not recognizing Odo, though! Not unless it's Rene Auberjonois dressed up like the trolley. ; )